![]() Virtually every time I used it I had to force restart it at some point in using it. It was far, far, far more unstable and unusable than the Wahoo Companion app. Setting aside any stability issues with the device, I can’t tell you how many times I had to restart the app due to it locking up and/or not syncing properly. Felt more like a thrown-in feature more than anything else.īut the topper was the stability issues with the app itself. Hydration and nutrition were more or less just glorified alerts, things I could program on my Apple Watch just as easily. I couldn’t figure out how they calculated this stuff.especially the heat acclimation part. They seemed a bit half-baked and not really that useful. ![]() ![]() Granted, these are more Edge related features than Connect features but they’re still a part of the overall software experience. Other monitoring features like hydration, nutrition, and heat acclimation were less that desired as well. Really? How am I supposed to adapt if I have to do some sort of recovery to two straight days? Nuts! I had one ride, a 20+ ride, that told me I needed like two days of recovery. For instance, the amount of recovery time needed after a ride or workout always seemed really off. I ended up using one of Strava’s Summit plans for that, which is probably simpler but strangely more effective by comparison. Always felt like something was off or it wasn’t connecting with me and what my body was telling me. I thought I could use just Garmin Connect to track my overall fitness, fatigue, and recovery but it just wasn’t all that sticky. That’s kind of how it is with Garmin Connect though: if it isn’t built-in, it requires a plug-in. I expected that this sort of thing would work just fine but it ended up requiring a third-party plug-in, one that wasn’t even sanctioned by RideWithGPS. One particular issue had to do with getting RideWithGPS routes synced to my Edge 830. Suffice to say I was very, very wary of most plug-ins after that. Long rides would cause it to lockup to the point where half my ride would go unrecorded. It was highly graphical and really cool.but highly unstable. I had one installed that provided an alternate data display. Some work ok while others cause all sort of problems. But others require a Connect plug-in or are completely non-existent. Some sources are kind of built-in, like syncing to Apple Health and Strava. The other thing I didn’t like was how Garmin handles syncing to third-party sources. Not exactly what I would call a “calendar”. Just a glorified list of what I did really. I couldn’t schedule rides nor could I add upcoming strength training routines. The Calendar wasn’t particularly useful other than being able to review current rides. It would have been nice for Garmin to allow us the ability to customize the navigation a bit. For the main navigation, I primarily used the Today and Calendar views Challenges, News Feed, and even Notifications went largely unused. Overall, the design of the app is just.ok. Specifically, it was various things that were supposed to aid you in determining your over all fitness that didn’t end up really helping much. Garmin’s fitness tracking seemed so flaky and quite abstract. In fact, I lost a lot of confidence even with some of the bits of functionality as they relate to my fitness tracking. I also had issues with Garmin Connect itself. It sucked! But it wasn’t just the device itself. In a nutshell, it was a travesty! I don’t say that lightly. My experience using a Garmin Edge 830 is pretty well documented. A lot can be done on the device itself but, eventually, all roads must lead back to Garmin Connect. With virtually every Garmin device, you have to use the Garmin Connect app to do stuff with them. How do they impact the overall experience one has with these devices? Garmin Connect But what I didn’t talk about in any of these posts was the apps used to manage these devices. In past posts, I’ve talked about the differences between the Garmin Edge 530/830 and the Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM ( Part 1 and Part 2) along with a comparison of the ELEMNT BOLT and ELEMNT ROAM. You can’t really talk about the ELEMNT Companion app without having something to compare it to. I honestly can’t talk about the Wahoo ELEMNT Companion app without referencing the Garmin Connect app. Now, I can’t speak to the Android version, but I can speak to the iOS version. Specifically, he asked about whether the upgrades and recent changes wreck the stability and experience one has with the app. Recently, a reader wrote in asking about the Wahoo ELEMNT Companion app.
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